Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: … the benefit of each and every person within his collective is evaluated not according to his own goodness, but according to his service to the public. And vice-versa, we appreciate the attribute of evil of each and every individual only according to the harm one inflicts upon the public in general, and not by one’s own individual value.

These things are crystal clear both from the perspective of the truth in them, and from the perspective of the good in them. This is because what is found in the collective is only what is found in the individual. And the benefit of the collective is the benefit of each and every individual: who harms the collective takes his share in the harm, and who benefits the collective takes his share in the benefit, since individuals are part of the whole, and the whole is not worth in anyway more than the sum of its individuals.

Here is a constant calculation, absolutely complete and very real.

I see before me a vast integral system of the entire world, not our world, but all the worlds. I feel like I am locked in this system through the rest of humanity, an enormous amount of interconnected cogwheels. And I have absolutely no freedom to turn by a few degrees in one direction or another.

After all, a cogwheel is like a sphere: I can spin here and there, in different directions, at different angles.

Yet, wherever I turn, I am connected with other cogwheels. I affect their rotation, their state, and they affect me. This is the world.

This means that nature is absolutely whole and interconnected and we have no way to do anything against it.
[252356]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 7/21/19

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In the News (The Guardian):  “Prisoners could be handed the keys to their cells to incentivize good behavior, as well as a series of other benefits, under government plans that call on governors to put more emphasis on rewards and less on punishments.

“Ministers want to give prison chiefs the power to begin allowing inmates who follow the rules more time out of their cells, the freedom to cook their own meals and more time to spend in the gym, as well as the freedom to choose when to shower and more time to meet visitors. …

“Officials cited evidence summarized by the government last month that positive reinforcement was more effective as a means by which to change behavior in the long term. And they stressed that those who did not abide by the rules could still lose privileges. …

“The policy also called for prison staff to ‘consistently use verbal reinforcement for good behavior and challenge poor behavior outside formal reviews’, and handed prison chiefs the ‘freedom to increase the amount of time out of cell for recreational activities or exercise alongside education and work programs’.”

Question: What do you think about this system of detention?

Answer: In principle, the Torah and especially Kabbalah feel that incarceration is not a correction. We see that it corrects nothing. On the contrary, people leave prison even more angry with huge malicious egoism that they again begin to use in everyday life among people.

Prison is not education. Education must be organized differently.

In the past, a few thousand years ago, there were cities of refuge where people were deported and looked after. They had to remain inside the city and had no right to leave it.

When the ones supervising them (educators, etc.) saw that a person was functioning normally, they could gradually take him beyond the boundaries of this system.

Remark: It is also said in the Torah that the guilty ones were sent there so that others could not take revenge on them.

My Comment: Yes. It was all organized very seriously for the mutual benefit of both these people and external society. Later they returned.

I would advise this. They should feel free and change gradually.

Remark: But still the idea of the accusers and those that endorse incarceration is different, “They must be humiliated, locked up.”

My Comment: That is natural because we do not have a system of education; we only have a system of coercion and punishment.

Question: Does the system of punishment not work?

Answer: We see that it does not work. Moreover, the rest of society becomes infected by these thoughts. We see proof of the insufficiency of the punishment system in the ones who return to the streets, destroy everything, break store windows, set up barricades, and so on.

Question: Do you think that even the most inveterate criminal can be re-educated?

Answer: I think that it is possible to re-educate them and give them an opportunity for self-control in these cities. They can establish such an order that all others will envy because there is a concept of honor among them. We must understand that they are serious people who can establish order.

Question: What should change in the way of thinking of law enforcement agencies and prosecutors?

Answer: I think they should be locked up instead of these criminals. Then their way of thinking would change. It is impossible to be on one side and think for the other side. Of course, I mean this as a joke, but there is some truth in it.

Remark: You always say that the system of judges used to be completely different. Judges were those who simply could not accept a bribe.

My Comment: Being a judge was the highest position. In principle, to this day it is considered that a judge should receive a good salary, should be protected and independent. But what kind of independence can there be today if all judges obey governments, all are in collusion with each other, “one hand rubs another,” etc.?

Remark: Previously judges did not need to be paid a lot.

My Comment: This is not the point. They really were independent.

Question: How was that possible? What is this ideal image of a judge?

Answer: A judge greatly valued his position. He cherished the public opinion that was constantly tuned in such a way that a judge was above everyone, even above a king. A judge was on the same level as the Creator. It is possible to see this in the Torah, in the Book of Judges. This is the highest position in the country.

Question: Is it possible to raise such people in our egoistic world?

Answer: For this, it is necessary to educate them. We need an education system, not a penal system and not this public one that is a mess. But it is possible.

Question: Do you think that what they want to do in Britain is a step toward education?

Answer: Let them try. But in order to build a correct system, the right people must build it. I do not hold out hope that they will succeed. People with a different way of thinking should create such a system.

Question: So, is this a dead end?

Answer: Yes. Until they turn to Kabbalists nothing will help them. Good luck, British ladies and gentlemen!
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman”, 7/16/19

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Question: I came to Kabbalah with a clear internal understanding that everything a person thinks about comes to him from the Creator. I put that into practice when I have a thought about some other person, relative, or acquaintance; I make sure I realize this thought immediately.

What I mean is that I will call him and ask what is going on, and it turns out that at the very same moment this person was thinking about me or was having problems.

Do these thoughts come to us from our egoistic world or arise from the upper worlds?

Answer: Nothing appears by itself. We are all connected by our thoughts and desires. I am not saying that we have to call each other all the time and inquire about what is happening. But if any thoughts or desires surface, they depend on the global picture of souls with whom we are completely interconnected.

Nothing is independent in this world, not the slightest thought or desire. Everything is completely interconnected and mutually defined. We all determine each other’s destinies.
[249825]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/21/19

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Question: How can the right environment help in building a stable and strong family bond? And how can the family bond strengthen the environment?

Answer: We need to learn this. We have had many conversations that deal with this subject: how to behave in a family, how to balance family relationships. It is possible to find and study everything in our archive.

Question: You say that the future will be unbearable. How should we understand this?

Answer: That is incorrect! I am saying that it could be unbearable, but it could also be normal, if we understand the dynamics of our development and in what manner we can correct it.

Question: Which professions and experts will be in demand in the coming year?

Answer: This year, almost all professions will be in demand as before, but over time, there will be a very serious revision of professions.

Question: Legalization of drugs, sports, and smartphones—these satisfy the masses. How do we escape these traps? What will change this year?

Answer: I don’t know. It is impossible to change something in society, to turn it around to a particular point, without educating it as a whole. It will not work.

Question: Isn’t humanity playing with the Internet and computer technology too much? How much more do they need to be developed?

Answer: It is very good that humanity “sits” on the Internet; it is beginning to comprehend the opportunity of communicating between each other. I very much hope that in the future this system will begin to serve the general connection between us.

Question: Most people are convinced that they are in an excellent connection with others and that everyone else is at fault. How is it possible to explain what the right connection is?

Answer: You cannot do anything, you have to explain. So many people, practically all of us, justify ourselves and believe that we are right. We must think about how to explain that there is a greater truth.
[245561]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/13/19

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Question: You say that mutual annihilation leads to regression in the development of society, but ultimately doesn’t war usually stimulate productive forces?

Answer: Yes, wars stimulate forces of production, but they fail to contribute to society’s and people’s inner development, which is what really matters. On the contrary, they usher men into the next double helix, and therefore, technical progress is the only progress they bring.

Of course, if it were not for wars and threats, humanity would have developed much slower on a technical level, and consequently, in science and in other areas, but not in the social sphere.

Wars bring about society’s regression, not progress. The wounds that remain after wars take a very long time to heal and are practically incurable. They lurk somewhere inside as we try not to deal with them, but in fact, they disallow the construction of normal relations.
[244955]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/13/19

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Question: What awaits the family institution? How do we save, strengthen, and balance it? How can Kabbalah help with this?

Answer: I think this year the family institution, along with other social institutions, will face very serious challenges. We will continue to see problems in the family, separation between parents and children and between the parents themselves, divisions between different families and generations: parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren. People will feel no sense of belonging to one another: you gave birth to me, raised me, and now I am leaving.

Consequently, we will reach a state, where no one will owe anyone anything, no one can ask anything from the other: “Leave me alone. What do I care about all of you and why do you care about me?”

After that, along with general recognition of evil, supplied to us by our egoism, we will finally start to realize that there is nothing left to do but try to correct it. Life will become so unbearable (not only in the family but in all its aspects) that people will have no hope left for the future or the present.

One will truly begin to understand that to be alone among other people is worse than being alone in the jungle where you don’t know where to place your foot without being stung or attacked from above.

A person will feel threatened by the environment: one seems to be among people, but in an urban jungle where one cannot make it to the store and back even if he runs. One will feel that no one can or is even willing to help him.

I hope that will be enough for us to realize that we need to do something with our human nature. We will then listen and hear that there is a method that corrects our nature and it is ready. Everything depends only on the person himself. Maybe then that person will come to us.
[244602]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 1/13/19

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Question: How can we explain to the 99% of people what a good life is?

Answer: We consider life as good according to what is good for us.

In our time, however, having uncorrected connections between ourselves, we cannot feel good. We see that the world is falling apart because the upper light descending upon it wants to fill it and the world feels its oppositeness to this light.

The closer spiritual goodness is to our world, the worse we feel. The nearing of the upper light gives us a sense of darkness because we are uncorrected, opposite to it. Therefore, if we want to feel the blessings and all the goodness, we must change ourselves to be similar to the upper light so we do not plunge into problems and crises because the light is coming closer and closer to us. In other words, we have to unite on the level of this world. That is the problem.

For example, the news announces that an asteroid is on its course to Earth and that the planet is in danger, people should feel themselves in danger, the upper light is coming closer to us, the Creator wishes to be revealed to the creations. This is why we are called “the last generation.”

We have entered a path of increasingly escalating pressure on us. This is why the science of Kabbalah has become revealed; it explains that we have to start adapting ourselves to the upper light to become somewhat similar to it.

We are a Kli (vessel of the soul), the Creator is the light. We can become similar to Him only if we unite between ourselves. In other words, if we wish for a better future, we must unite.
[244071]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/11/19

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Humanity feels itself as living in a certain space. What we exist within, we call our world. This is the surrounding nature, its inanimate, vegetative, animate levels, and humans.

Our world is governed in some way and lives according to its own laws. We study these laws and try to find some connection between them, how they affect us, how we can affect them, the properties of nature, and how to subjugate nature to make it profitable and comfortable for us to exist in this world.

As a result of our development, which has lasted many thousands of years on Earth, we come to the conclusion that we still know little about our world because events that we cannot predict take place in it and there are forces we cannot control. They affect us in a terrible way, scare us, and put us in situations that make us feel small, petty, and miserable.

Despite the achievements of science, we do not know when there will be an earthquake or a hurricane and what their impact might be. In general, there are enormous forces of nature that are developing, causing us great trouble, and we can do nothing about it.

We can do nothing with our lives, we cannot create a good society, correct interactions between spouses, children, and parents. We can do nothing about the fact that we are limited in our life, weak in the face of nature, in the face of ourselves. We are helpless in the face of life and death, and we find this very depressing. Subconsciously it humiliates us.

In general, we live in a world we know nothing about.

Question: Are there certain algorithms that nature develops us through, but we do not know them?

Answer: Even if we knew them a little and we gradually came to know them, it would not help us in governing. Humanity’s development leads only to the fact that we somehow protect ourselves from nature’s negative influences, but nothing more.

A person finds himself existing in the system of forces that govern him at all levels. We can do nothing in the field of economics, family relationships, relationships of state, or in the sphere of ecology, in anything. It is in our era, when we have achieved such prosperity, such strength, and such understanding of nature, that we only become convinced that we are very weak and do not know it.
[243333]
From KabTV’s “The Essence of the Science of Kabbalah, Part 1,” 11/12/2019

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In the News (Bloomberg): “The World’s Richest People Lost $511 Billion in 2018,” “The richest people on Earth lost $511 billion this year after record first-half gains were obliterated by a succession of bruising market selloffs.”

My Comment: The fact is that they must understand whether they have an opportunity to hinder the progress of people. The more you present people with new toys for mutual connection, for their fulfillment, for any information, etc., the more they become picky and selective.

They are no longer interested in Facebook as it is. They simply cannot look at ads. People are so fed up with it that they even cannot be thrust on children.

That is, everything that the rich have made during the past 20 years is starting to work less and less. Despite all their sophistication, it passes. The period of egoistic accumulation will have to rot itself.

Humanity is still developing. Therefore, I see that the time will come, and very quickly, when these dollars they accumulated will have no value and there will no longer be an opportunity to earn money.

I think people will generally strive for greater simplicity. They will want to sit on the grass, drink a little, have a snack, listen to normal music, the chirping of birds, and the laughter of children running around. They will want something very close and pleasant to the heart, and not to bother their heads, brains, soul, and feelings with something very artificial.

I hope it will be this way.
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 12/25/18

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In the News (Reuters):  “Robots will make robots at a new ABB (ABBN.S) factory in China, which the Swiss engineering group said on Saturday it plans to build for $150 million in Shanghai as it defends its place as the country’s largest maker of industrial robots. …

“China is expanding its robot workforce, as wages for human workers there rise and the country seeks to compete with lower-cost countries via greater automation. In 2017, one of every three robots sold in the world went to China, which purchased nearly 138,000 units, ABB said.

“ABB’s new 75,000-square-foot factory will use software meant to allow people and robots to work safely in close proximity, the company said, adding its YuMi robots — designed to work side-by-side with people — will also be deployed on many of the small parts assembly tasks needed to manufacture an ABB robot.”

Question: People, journalists, and scientists are worried about our future being ruled by robots! What will our future look like with robots?

Answer: Our future is moving toward the state where a person will not have any work other than spiritual work. We will only deal with things robots cannot do—the correct internal, spiritual unification between us.

Robots will take care of everything else. In general, our world is gradually reaching the point where we all will shift into spirituality. Only robots will remain in the material matter. Afterward, they too will disappear.

In principle, our world will gradually manifest itself as a world of forces, spirit, and a web of forces, not physical mater.  Matter does not really exist. We can see this already in quantum physics.

So there is no reason to worry about the fact that robots will replace us. On the contrary, we will strive to make sure that everything we do is transferred to robots and we will do what robots cannot: spiritual work, uniting between us, and exiting to the next level of existence, to the spiritual world.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/28/18

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